Job-free days: 33
July Unemployment Log
Number of rejections: Does my family leaving without me count?
Task for the day: Live through it.
Bank account level: $432 The unemployment check has been credited to my account. Will splurge and treat myself. Can buy candy and pop and binge until I die of a sugar overload, which sounds pretty good at this point.
Thoughts for the day:
Family sucks. Maybe Julie is right. I was switched at birth. Out there somewhere is a frustrated woman whose family smothers her with love and common sense, but accuses her of squandering money on vanity. Tragic really. Wonder how I can find my real family? I smell a book deal and a movie of the week, maybe a lawsuit. Big money, big money. Won’t need a job again! Internet search, do you think?
Alice stopped by. She let herself in without knocking. "Anyone home? Leesa?"
I was in Dad’s shop in the garage, involved in my ongoing salvage operation when I heard her call from the house. I extricated myself from rubbing alcohol, rags, and stacks of movies and CDs, and bounded up the few stairs from the garage into the house, breathless from too much lying around and lack of exercise. I needed to make a new rule about exercising. Wiping soot from DVDs probably doesn’t count as cardio-vascular exertion.
"No one here but us chickens," I said as I came around the corner into the entryway. "The family executives are at WAR."
Julie went to work for Dad at Winsome Aerospace Retrofitters, like a dutiful daughter, and had been breezing her way up the corporate ladder ever since.
Alice gave me a concerned once-over and wiped a smudge of soot from my nose. I wore one of Dad’s castoff shirts that hung on me like a kindergartner’s painting smock, sleeves cut off in concession to summer, and a pair of cutoffs. Very stylish.
"Does Jack know you’re pilfering his wardrobe?" she said in a teasing tone as we moved into the living room.
"This old thing?" I laughed. "Dad had it in the charity box. I figure I’m charity case enough these days. Can I get you something? Pop, iced tea, water?"
"No, thanks."
I fell into an overstuffed chair. Alice took the sofa.
"How goes the salvaging?" Alice looked her usual self—calm, and put together. She’d colored and cut her hair, and acquired a hint of a tan since I’d last seen her.
"Thank heavens for iPods is all I have to say. I’ve only recovered about half of my CD and DVDs. There’s a lot of meltage." Salvaging was a safe topic. "I have good documentation. The insurance company should pay to replace most of what I lost.
"I never thought I’d be grateful to Brett for anything, but I’m glad he insisted on making that inventory video for me years ago."
"Brett’s anal retentive, but he always did have good common sense."
Alice never seemed to like my boyfriends, which had been few and far between these last years. Let me see, I broke up with Brett, what, a year and a half ago? Who had I dated since then? Had I even been on a date?
"I hear you had an incident with a toaster and a fire extinguisher," Alice continued. "Another flare-up of your pyrophobia?"
It looked like Alice had been reading psych books again. But she had me. I was afraid of fire. But given my current circumstances, who wouldn’t be?
Just then the phone rang. I picked it up on the second ring, motioning for her to excuse me.
"Hey, Leesa, it’s Trey."
I rolled my eyes. Trey, indeed. I’d known Willie, William Samson the Third, since kindergarten. We went all the way through high school together. He’d been plain old Willie until he joined his father’s insurance firm after high school and decided to rebrand himself Trey. Unfortunately, poor Willie/Trey simply wasn’t cool enough to pull off the transformation. Like everyone else, I still called him Willie.
"Hey, Willie. What’s new with my claim? You have my check yet?" I turned my back on Alice to muffle my conversation.
A guilty hesitation followed before he spoke. Even across the phone lines, I could read Willie. "Sorry, Leesa. No, I don’t. Just more questions. This part of your claim for your clothes, I’ll have to see canceled checks or credit-card statements ASAP. How about bringing them by today?" Willie sounded stranger than usual, a mixture of hopeful and nervous.
"I stored the statements in my desk in the kitchen, which, as you will recall, burned to the ground. I’ll have to call my bank to get them."
"Fine, Lees. Anything for you. Because of our relationship…"
I rolled my eyes. Willie had been obsessed with me since first grade, asking me to every dance from seventh grade through high school and several significant events since. For my part, I never accepted, nor had any intention of doing so.
"…I’ll cut you some slack," he continued. "Give you a few days."
"Great. Now what about reimbursement for my big-ticket items? I turned in the video, remember?"
"I remember. But I can’t forward your paperwork to the national office until your claim’s complete and you get all the receipts to me—"
"And the sooner I get them in, the sooner I get my money. I know! I know!"
"Good." He cleared his throat. "Uh, Lees, my insurance adjuster came back with a few questions."
"Questions? About what?"
"I’d rather discuss that with you in person. How about over dinner? Why don’t I meet you somewhere? My treat."
"Sorry, but I’m not up to going out. I mean, I leave for a minute and homes go up in flames. I can’t leave Dad’s unguarded." I turned over my shoulder and shot a look at Alice, who rolled her eyes and mouthed "lame."
"Um, really?" Willie had a way with the English language. "That’s, uh, too bad. Look, we really need to talk. What say I come over? I’ll bring takeout. How about tonight? I’m off at six."
"How about you just tell me what your adjuster found out?"
"Okay then," Willie sounded disappointed. "Not much to say. The adjuster found the ignition site, or I should say, sites. But nothing points the blame specifically at your contractor. No scorched electric outlets or anything like that. There’s plenty of evidence of accelerants, however—"
"No doubt all attributable to the products Gus used to refinish my floor," I said. "It’s likely that Gus accidentally left something plugged in and a spark ignited the dust they’d kicked up from stripping the floor."
"That doesn’t explain the fire apparently starting in multiple places at once." There was that uncertainty again. What had happened to Willie’s confidence?
"Sure it does," I said, frustrated. "Think about it—dust everywhere. Flying sparks. It’s as good an explanation as any."
"Leesa, the investigators didn’t find any tools plugged in, period. And if a spark had caught fire while Gus was still there, he would have noticed it."
I sighed, frustrated. "Call me when you have news or a check ready for me." I hung up and turned back to Alice.
"Bad news?" Alice asked, eyebrows raised.
"Still no culprits in the towering inferno version of Leesa’s kitchen becomes ash. Now tell me, did Jules tattle on me to you?"
"Jack called."
Uh, oh. That couldn’t mean anything good. My father and Alice had a strange relationship, sort of like a pair of divorced parents who’d never been married. Jack looked after Julie. Alice took care of me. I was acting up so Jack called Alice in.
For a time after my mother’s death, I thought, or maybe wished, they’d marry. There was a lot of suspicious chumminess going on between those two. Alice’s toothbrush had its own hook in Dad’s bathroom. Even though they never married, they remained friendly. I sometimes wondered if she and Dad still slept together on occasion, though the last time I’d had a heart-to-heart with Alice she’d said she’d given up men and become celibate. I focused my attention back on her.
"Dad! Forget about him." I paced. "He just wants me out of his hair. Did I mention that he’s been singing his stupid get-a-job song at least a dozen times a day?"
"Sit down, Leesa." She patted the sofa cushion next to her.
I sat.
"Julie thinks you need counseling." Alice sounded calm, unconvinced, frustrated.
"Julie’s in this get-Leesa-out-of-the-house deal, too."
"The fact remains that you sleep most of the day, and you’re not looking for work."
"Not true! I make my three job contacts per week just like the Employment Security Department requires. I can show you my records."
"There’s a time waster. Who do you know who’s ever gotten a job that way? Precious few people do, I assure you. Stats bear me out." She sighed and squeezed my shoulder. "I didn’t raise you to end up like this. You need to get your feet under you again."
"Sure. Fine. I agree with you. Feet, no problem. But I’m not going to a stupid pop psychology seminar." I paused for effect. "Here’s an idea, why don’t you and I hang out together that day instead?" I gave her a fat grin, hoping to charm her into the idea.
"Can’t. Sorry. I’m leaving that afternoon for a business ethics symposium in Florida." Alice didn’t look at me as she spoke, a sure sign of guiltiness.
I forced a smile. "Sure, but the thing is, late July isn’t the best time for Florida. Hurricane season will be starting. It’d be safer and more fun to stay here." I gave her a playful little bump with my shoulder. "If you don’t stay, I’ll have to run away."
Alice smiled with me. I’d been threatening to run away since I was three. Back then, I got no farther than the curb. I wasn’t allowed to leave the yard. Given my finances, I probably wouldn’t make it much farther now.
Alice sighed. "I have only your best interests at heart. The seminar was my idea."
I stopped smiling. "Yeah, I figured."
"Dr. Raison spoke highly of Ryne Garrett and his Breakthrough to Greatness sessions when he took us through his session on ethics and honesty on campus last spring, before his death." She shook her head. "He was only fifty-eight!"
Alice was a business professor at the University of Washington. She mourned the loss of knowledge as much as the man.
"If this Dr. Raison you’ve mentioned so often recommended Breakthrough, it must be pricey," I said. "Dad probably spent way too much. In consideration of his financial health, I think it’s best if I bow out of this adventure."
Alice shook her head. "Nice try. Your father owes you this one. Jack can well afford to send you to it."
No he couldn’t. She knew that, and I knew that. I wondered just how much Alice had kicked in to make this seminar happen. It would have been impolite to ask, or even hint.
"You’re going." She reached across and squeezed my knee.
I sighed. Alice could ooze simpatico when she wanted to and act as if we were exactly of like mind when my mind wanted to run in the opposite direction.
"I hate seminars," I said. "Besides, I don’t need this one. How many times do I have to tell you that Howard is going to make me an offer?"
Howard Lindberg was my dream boss. Aggressive, savvy, logical, and a corporate political genius. He took care of the people under his charge, especially those whose work and ideas he liked and respected, like mine. Howard was the second engineering boss I ever had, and even though he stood a mere five foot eight inches tall, no one had ever measured up to him any way close.
He jumped jobs and companies with regularity and the same ease that Superman jumps small buildings, always ratcheting his career up a notch or three in the process. He pulled me along with him when he could and I was a happy follower. He’d bailed me out of a pink slip situation or two in the past. And now he was looking like salvation again.
"If he’s going to make you an offer, why is it taking so long?" Alice looked skeptical.
"It’s only been a little over a month. I had to interview with the other two VPs as well as Howard and the CEO. Everything’s set now. I passed muster with everyone. Now Howard just has to wait until the corporate quarterly report comes out second week of August. When they hit their numbers, I’m in!" I gave Alice a reassuring nod.
"And if they don’t?"
I shook my head. "They will. Howard gave me the inside scoop. And believe me, Howard is never wrong."
"So why not make you the offer now?" Alice gave me that raised eyebrow look again.
I hated skepticism.
"Corporate politics," I said. "It doesn’t look good to be making big fat offers and passing out tasty signing bonuses until the numbers come out."
She changed the subject. "Lees, The Breakthrough Seminar deals with more than just careers. It will help you get control of your life." Alice stroked my hair. "I have something for you. Something to entice you into going." She singsonged the words as she reached down into her bag.
Alice pulled an e-reader in a slightly beat up light pink leather case from her bag and placed it on my lap. It looked suspiciously like hers.
"What’s this? Your e-reader?" I picked it up. Being lent her e-reader was a long way from the bribe I expected.
"My old e-reader. I got a new one." She opened the leather case and switched the e-reader on. A book popped up. "Breakthrough to Greatness, the book!" Alice sounded way too excited.
"I like old fashioned paper books," I said.
Alice shook her head. "For an engineer, you sure are a Luddite."
I had no idea what a Luddite was, but it didn’t sound complimentary.
I sighed and shook my head. Alice knew I had a rule about reading nonfiction—I didn’t. Not unless I had to. Having to basically consisted of technical material related to work, or a medical journal when the need arose and I was feeling hypochondriacal. And even then, I skimmed, picking out the important parts and ignoring the rest.
"Read it, Lees. I guarantee it’ll charge you up and change your life. Wild horses won’t be able to keep you away from that seminar."
Maternal optimism.
"But if I read the book, I won’t need to go at all." I slid her a smug look. I prided myself on sound logic.
"I’d feel much better if you did go."
That was as close as Alice ever got to begging and like scissors beating paper, it won out over logic every time.
I shrugged, defeated, knowing I’d already caved. "When is it again?"
My cell phone rang, playing the ringtone I’d set up for Cara DeAndrea, my former friend. Cara had been my best friend since seventh grade. Until recently. She was short, dark, plump, Italian, and bossy.
I should have blocked her number. She’d been calling and texting me incessantly. Until now I’d refused to answer or respond. I picked up. "I’m not ready to talk to you."
"It’s been over a month."
"Not long enough this time."
We sighed in unison. Over the years we’d developed a pattern for fighting and making up that went something like: betrayal, discovery, anger, thoughts of revenge, loneliness, reconciliation. Sometimes the process took minutes, sometimes months. Our record was two. Months.
"I’m still steaming," I said.
"You’re being illogical. You were the one who turned in the report stating that your position was purely overhead and could be cut if layoffs were necessary. With a report like that sitting on my desk, how could I not let you go?" She sounded frustrated.
"You could have reassigned me to a nonoverhead position."
She sighed. "Believe me, I tried."
I didn’t believe her.
"Look, I’m really sorry about your house. Why don’t I take you out to lunch and we can talk?"
"Not now."
"Lees, how long is this anger phase of yours going to last?"
I didn’t have a crystal ball. "No idea. And don’t try calling me again today. I’m turning off my phone as soon as Alice gets here to pick me up. I’m going to a seminar."
"A seminar? You and Alice? I didn’t think you liked seminars. What’s Alice dragging you to?"
"I’m breaking through to greatness. By myself. Alice isn’t going." I tried not to sound too testy about the whole deal. But upbeat and perky wasn’t suiting me.
She gasped. "Breakthrough to Greatness! That’s spendy."
I was surprised she’d heard of it. I certainly hadn’t.
"Unemployment benefits must be better than they used to be."
"Don’t bet on it. Alice is pretending that Dad’s paying, but she’s behind it."
"Doesn’t Greatness preach a bunch of self-realization, inspirational boloney? If I were you, I’d bail."
"Don’t tempt me. Alice is forcing me to go, like it or not." I heard the distinctive sound of a car rolling into the driveway. "Here’s Alice now. Gotta run."
"Lees, call me—" Cara said before I punched the button to disconnect.